GAINESVILLE - Florida coach Urban Meyer might never have had as a difficult a time coming up with an offensive game plan as he did this week.

The problem is that the coach on the other sideline on Saturday probably could have done it for him.

Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen spent 10 years working with and for Meyer at Notre Dame, Bowling Green, Utah and Florida. He helped Meyer develop Meyer's version of the spread-option offense. For the past three seasons, Mullen called the plays as UF's offensive coordinator.

Because Mullen helped put the offense together and knows how it works, it also means he knows how to take it apart, too. That's what has Meyer worried.

"He's a smart guy," Meyer said. "We'll be ready, though."

The Gators spent the week tinkering with the mechanics of the offense. They have changed or modified the signals from the sideline, the audibles, the line calls and pass-protection calls.

That was the easy part.

Mullen knows which defenses, coverages, blitzes and fronts that give UF quarterback Tim Tebow trouble. Mullen didn't like to see them when he was in Gainesville, but he spent time this week making sure Mississippi State defensive coordinator Carl Torbush got the list.

"They are doing everything on defense that bothered us as a staff on offense," Meyer said. "Whether it be a two-tilt fire, a certain blitz, this certain blitz. Tim and I were talking about it - you name it that bothered us, they're doing it."

UF's offense isn't coming off its best game. The Gators turned the ball over four times, gave up six sacks, struggled in the red zone, and needed a last-second field goal to beat visiting Arkansas last Saturday. Tebow said that would have been enough to work on this week without the added problem of Mullen's familiarity.

Tebow said he and Mullen are still close, but that doesn't mean Mullen won't try to exploit the on-field part of that relationship.

"Obviously, he knows the weaknesses of protections [and] the weaknesses of plays - if they [the defense] do this where I'm supposed to look," Tebow said. "Some of it might be a little bit different because [of quarterbacks] coach [Scot] Loeffler, but a lot of it's still the same because it's still that same offense, same philosophy. I'm sure he'll do a lot of the things that me and him together didn't like seeing when he ran it."

Mullen said knowing Tebow's and the offense's tendencies will help, but that doesn't guarantee the Bulldogs will be able to capitalize on that knowledge.

"There's familiarity. I know the system and the offense in helping our defensive coaches in showing them what they are trying to do, why they are running what they are running on offense and the players," Mullen said.

"That helps. I know Jeff Demps runs a 10.01 100 meters and set like the teenage world record. We know that. I know their players. But you've still got to try to stop them. And if he [Demps] gets in the open field, we don't have anybody that runs a 10.0 100 meters here. So if he gets in the open field, he's going to score.

"So even though we know that, I don't think it's that huge an advantage."

Maybe not, but the fact that Mullen knows so much about the offense is forcing the Gators to make a lot of changes in a week certainly is.

Not just mechanical changes, either.

Meyer admitted that he'll be changing the way he thinks this week. If the Gators ran a certain pass play against a certain coverage the past several seasons, Meyer said he might not call the same play if UF faces the same situation on Saturday.

Or the Gators could completely chuck their run-first approach and let Tebow throw 30 to 40 times.

But Tebow said the Gators do have a bit of an advantage, too. They know as much about Mullen as he does about them. So while UF is making all those changes, he expects MSU to be making some, too.

"He knows a lot of what we do, and we obviously know a lot of what he does," Tebow said. "It'll be two similar schemes going at each other."